SCOTUS takes on ObamaCare–Bigger than Roe v Wade?

This morning, as expected, the Supreme Court agreed to take up Obamacare. What was unexpected — and unprecedented in modern times — is that it set aside five-and-a-half hours for the argument. Here are the issues the Court will decide:

Whether Congress has the power to enact the individual mandate. – 2 hours

Whether the challenge to the individual mandate is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. – 1 hour

Whether and to what extent the individual mandate, if unconstitutional, is severable from the rest of the Act. – 90 minutes

Those are critical questions. They tend to define in four points, how threatened our rights are by this awful legislation. Forget what it is about, consider to what level it intrudes and what, if found Constitutional, it portends.

If found Constitutional, you can take the actual Constitution, the one that no fair reading gives an inkling of support to such nonsense as ObamaCare, and cut it up for toilet paper. It will be, officially, dead.

A decision that supports those 4 points (or even some of them) means the end of federalism and the final establishment of an all powerful national government which can (and will) run your life just about any way it wishes. If it has the power to enact a mandate such as that called for in ObamaCare, it can mandate just about anything it wishes. And, if the new conditions on all federal Medicaid funding stand, the states have no grounds to resist or refuse other federal intrusion.

In any event, the Supreme Court has now set the stage for the most significant case since Roe v. Wade. Indeed, this litigation implicates the future of the Republic as Roe never did. On both the individual-mandate and Medicaid-coercion issues, the Court will decide whether the Constitution’s structure — federalism and enumeration of powers — is judicially enforceable or whether Congress is the sole judge of its own authority. In other words, do we have a government of laws or men?

If you’re devoted to freedom and liberty and opposed to intrusive and coercive government, you know how you want this to come out.

8 Responses to SCOTUS takes on ObamaCare–Bigger than Roe v Wade?

What dead? I look forward to my government mandated purchase of a GM vehicle, Solyndra power panels, my mandated employment of an illegal alien and backing of his application for citizenship, and my obligatory programmer’s union dues payment deducted from each pay check to help America stay strong and not be lazy. I probably need to cut down on salt, and fat, and almost certainly will benefit from the mandated health and fitness programs. Mandatory morning PT will do us all a world of good. On an emotional side, given some of my neanderthal attitudes, I’m sure my mandated counseling sessions to help me overcome my dislike and discontent with the government’s ‘help’ in so many ways, will benefit me as well, and will make me a better, more productive, more willing and docile citizen.

Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case

The featured guests at the dinner? Scalia and Thomas.

It’s nothing new: The two justices have been attending Federalist Society events for years. And it’s nothing that runs afoul of ethics rules. In fact, justices are exempt from the Code of Conduct that governs the actions of lower federal judges.

Scalia and Thomas dine with healthcare law challengers as court takes case

The featured guests at the dinner? Scalia and Thomas.

It’s nothing new: The two justices have been attending Federalist Society events for years. And it’s nothing that runs afoul of ethics rules. In fact, justices are exempt from the Code of Conduct that governs the actions of lower federal judges.

Interesting that you bring up R v W. That answers your question already about the Constitution, I believe. I think the ruling more or less said that a person’s right to privacy precluded an possible criminal investigation can could lead to a conviction. There is a right to privacy, but one that precludes any possible criminal investigation under any circumstance, I don’t see.

@jpm100 It was a boguss ruling and created a boguss right. If indeed it had created a right to privacy over “our own bodies” then it might have been intellectually sustainable. But it did not. because the same woman who has power over her body and over the fetus within it, does not also have a right to have sex for money for instance, or take drugs, both which are using your own body.

It was an intellectually bankrupt exercise in pure judicial absolutism.

Just a note on the new comment system. The front page version of this articles says there are six comments when the permalink version and a direct count say 5 comments. Did someone’s get deleted or swallowed by the new system?